1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a so-called snap door used for a household electric appliance such as a television, and more particularly, as illustrated in FIG. 1, to a snap door 14, which is mounted so as to be able to protrude forward and backward with respect to a cabinet 13 of a household electric appliance 11, such as a television, thereby exposing control knobs 12 at the front side of cabinet 13 or hiding control knob 12 inside the cabinet 13.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 2 shows a conventional snap door 14 of a household electric appliance functioning as stated above. The snap door 14 is formed by a door housing 21 and a door body 22 coupled to slidably move forward and backward with respect to the door housing 21. Also included as parts of the snap door 14 are a latch switch 23 for locking the door body 22 in the door housing 21, and a pair of compression springs 24a and 24b for pushing the door body 22 out of the front side of the door housing 21 when the latch switch 23 is released.
The door body 22 includes a lower case 26, an upper cover 27 coupled to lower case 26 by means of a pair of screws (not shown), and a knob assembly 28 provided to one side of the bottom plane of the upper cover 27. Additionally, a front cover 29 is joined to one side of the front of the lower case 26 and the upper cover 27.
The knob assembly 28 has a knob holder 30 and a plurality of control knobs 12. Also, a plurality of resilient bridge portions 32 extend between the knob holder 30 and the control knobs 12. The knob assembly 28 is attached to the lower plane of the upper cover 27 by means of the knob holder 30.
A sub-PCB 34 disposed with a plurality of control switches 33 is arranged in the lower case 26 below the knob assembly 28 in such a manner that the control switches 33 are positioned to underlie directly the respective control knobs 12. Thus, signals generated by control switches 33 are supplied via a connector wire 35 to a main PCB 36 positioned at the rear side of snap door 14.
The latch switch 23 is arranged at the rear side of an upper center plane of the door housing 21, and a hook 31 is projectingly installed on the lower case 26 of the door body 22 in a position corresponding to that of the latch switch 23 so that it will engage the latch switch 23 thereby locking the door body 22 inside the door housing.
Reference numerals 37a and 37b denote stoppers for preventing the forward deviation of the door body 22 from the door housing 21 induced by a biasing force of springs 24a and 24b. Reference 38 is a damper gear for preventing abrupt motion of the door body 22 when it is slidably moved with respect to the door housing 21. Reference 39 is a rack which is disposed on one side and at the rear of the lower case 26 of the door body 22, and meshes with a damper gear 38.
As shown in FIG. 3, the conventional snap door 14 is mounted in the cabinet 13 of a household electric appliance 11, such as the television, by means of a plurality of screws 25a and 25b. When a user of the household electric appliance 11 presses the closed front plane of the door body 22 as shown generally in FIG. 1, the latch switch 23 caught in a hook 31 is released to allow the door body 22 to open and protrude to the front side of the household electric appliance 11 as a result of the biasing force of the springs 24a and 24b.
Once the door body 22 opens, as shown in FIG. 2, the control knobs 12 are exposed to enable the user of the household electric appliance 11 to press a control knob 12 for manipulating the control switches 33, thereby making it possible to operate the household electric appliance 11.
The door body 22 is closed by the user pressing the front plane of the door body 22, thereby overcoming the biasing force of the springs 24a and 24b. The hook 31 catches the latch switch 23 to hold the door body closed, thereby concealing the control knobs 12.
However, in the conventional snap door 14 formed as above, and as shown in FIG. 3, the main PCB 36 is placed to the rear of the snap door 14. For this reason, the main PCB 36 is positioned at the rear of the cabinet 13 and recessed at least the length of the snap door 14. This causes a problem in that the household electric appliance 11 becomes bulky.
The conventional snap door 14 is constructed in such a manner that the main PCB 36 is separated from the snap door 14 as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. This results in a drawback of additionally requiring the sub-PCB 34 for arranging the control switches 33 at the lower portion of control knobs 12 and the separate connector wire 35 for connecting the sub-PCB 34 to the main PCB 36.
Also, since the main PCB 36 is spaced apart from the front plane of the household electric appliance 11 by at least the length of the snap door 14, there is a need for a separate control PCB 34a for installing a power switch or remote-controller receiving portion and a separate connector wire 35a for connecting the control PCB 34a to the main PCB 36 in the vicinity of the front plane of the household electric appliance 11.
Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 3, since the main PCB 36 is separated from the front plane of the household electric appliance 11 by sufficient space to secure an operating distance for the snap door 14, there is the additional drawback of requiring a PCB holder 36a for fixing the main PCB 36.
Additionally, since the conventional snap door 14 has a door body 22, which is supported by a pair of springs 24a and 24b, it is difficult to provide a consistent and even spring force on both sides of the door body 22, with the consequence of incurring side-to-side shaking of the door body 22 with respect to door housing 21 when opening or closing the snap door 14.
Also, the conventional snap door 14 of the household electric appliance formed as described above has no means for preventing any upward and downward shaking of the door body 22 with respect to the door housing 21 when the door body 22 protrudes to the front of the door housing 21. Because of this fact, the door body 22 is shaken upward and downward against the door housing 21 whenever the user presses a control knob 12 of the door body 22.